Orrin Hatch: Tim Geithner should have quit

The White House’s first fiscal cliff offer was so bad that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner should have resigned rather than deliver it, says a top Republican.

“To come up to Capitol Hill and advocate for the program that he did was an insult and beneath his dignity,” Orrin Hatch, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters after a speech today at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

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Fiscal cliff: A primer

The Obama offer mirrored the president’s budget plan and included $1.6 trillion in taxes as well as a proposal to end congressional authority over the debt ceiling.

It was immediately panned by Republicans.

“He should have told the president, ‘I can’t do it.’ And if the president said, ‘You have to.’ He should have said, ‘You’ll have my resignation in an hour,’” Hatch said. “That’s what he should have said. It would have maybe awakened the president. That is what a good treasury secretary should do.”

Readers' Comments (27)

The offer was a purposeful insult to the GOP. And Obama intended it to be interpreted in that fashion. It was his way of saying, "I won. You lost. I can defeat you and get my way! Give up and give me what I demand! If you are cooperative enough, I may even throw you a bone!"

It was exactly like how Obama began his first term. And it is why there was so much partisan gridlock in his first term. And Pres. Obama seems intent on replicating his first term. He may get one thing through, but then get stonewalled after that.

When Senator Hatch first ran for the Senate, he had this to say regarding his opponent's lengthy stay in the position: "What do you call a Senator who’s served in office for 18 years? You call him home.”

Nearly 36 years later -- with another six-year term on the horizon -- I hardly take Senator Hatch seriously when he suggests someone should step down.

Orrin Hatch and most of his colleagues should resign from the US Senate because their knowledge of economics and public policy to grow our economy is so lacking that they are an embarrassment and hindrance to the future of the United States of America. Hatch and his cohorts created tax and spending policies 10 years ago that destroyed the economic soundness of our economy and the fiscal strength of our budgets built up in the 1990's. He is not qualified to give any opinion of what is necessary to address our current situation.

You, sir, are serving another 6 years and are becoming seriously irrelevant, do yourself (as well as the nation) a favor and go off into the sunset, taking your partner-in-crime, McCain with you. Seriously, you have hung in beyond your productive time.

Orrin should have quit ages ago. He's a useless old man who's time has come and gone.

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The Senator who should "quit" is Menendez.

hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SENATE_INTERN_ARRESTED

This could be huge! The key feature is not just that a Senator who supports immigration hired an illegal immigrant. Or even that the illegal immigrant he hire was a sex offender here in the US. The real corruption comes from the fact that apparently Homeland Security intervened with ICE and told them NOT to arrest the sex offender UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION!

This should get real interesting as the debate on illegal immigration heats up next year!

Geithner personifies the incest between the Federal Reserve and our Treasury Department. If Hatch wants to do something useful he should stump for a Treasury Secretary independent of the Federal Reserve.